for the love of Daisy, please microchip your cats

I've been meaning to pin this post for several months, and today as the story came full circle it seems like the perfect time to write it.

Though it is no surprise that I have a obsession great love of dogs, especially rescue dogs, I also am very fond of cats.  I've never had a cat, I am allergic to some.  But, I've always had this feeling that living here in New Hampshire, surrounded by woods, that one would eventually find its way to us and we would have a cat.  

It was the middle of last November- it was a very cold, dark grey day and we were expected to have our first really hard freeze that night.  As I was walking through the upstairs master bedroom I saw something in the back meadow.  I thought it was a bobcat.  We've seen the occasional bobcat (and in fact, this was a month after a neighbor spotted what she thought was a cougar in the area and sent out a "watch out" email) , but something about this sighting was odd- the animal was moving really slow and would sit hunkered in the grass for long periods of time making it difficult to get a good look at.  We assumed it was stalking a mouse in the grass  We got the binoculars out and decided it was a small bobcat.  It had beautiful coloring.  It wandered onto my neighbors property and disappeared.  Throughout the morning I kept an eye out for the cat, even going up to the fence to see if I could spot it on my neighbor's property.

Later in the day Dan is out with the girls in the front yard and I come out to the front porch to say something to him.  He turns to talk to me and then sees something and points to the corner of the front porch, and there curled up behind a chair is the teeniest, tiniest cat.  I thought it was a kitten it was so small.  I slowly walked up to cat, talking softly to it and it gently gets up and jumps off the porch and starts walking towards the barn.  Dan gets the girls inside (they would love to meet and play with a cat, but I wasn't sure this cat wanted to meet them :) and I follow the cat hoping to befriend it.  As it came to the tall stone wall at the corner of the garage it jumped down to the gravel drive and you could tell that big jump had knocked the wind out of the poor thing.  I scooped the cat up and it melted into my arms- such a sweet, tiny thing.  The cat was a beautiful tortoise color.
As I loved on and petted the cat chunks of hair started falling out and the cat seemed very out of sorts, and very cold.  Dan quickly cleaned out a small carrier we had in the basement so we could take the cat to our vet and I held the cat in my arms thinking that "our cat" had finally showed up just like I always thought it would.
The last time I had seen the cat in the yard it was heading towards my neighbors house.  If the cat had gone to that front porch it would have never been found as my neighbor is rarely home and wasn't there at this time.  I think the cat sensed the energy of our dogs and the warmth of the farmhouse and felt that our house was a safe house.

As we drove the cat to the vet I was wondering if it was a girl or a boy.  I just had this feeling that the cat was a girl.  So, then, I started thinking what will we name her?  The first name that came to me was "Daisy."  Daisy was on my long list of dog names (I love dog names and always have a running list going, just in case!)  when we adopted Magnolia and Louise, but as it turned out the names that we would call them came organically and didn't come off a list.  Something about the cat just seemed to fit the name, so I thought to myself, Daisy it is!

When we got to our vet the first thing they did was check to see if she had a microchip.  And, to all our surprise, she did!   I held the cat in my arms to warm her, and Dan and I stayed in an examining room while the clinic called the microchip company and then called the phone number that was on the cat's account.  After a few minutes they came in and told us that the cat was actually one of their clients.  The dad answered the phone and was shocked to get the call because the cat had been missing for 3 months, and they had just assumed the cat was dead.  He said he would be there as fast as he could.

Turns out the cat was a girl, she was 8 years old, and her name was......
 Daisy

I. kid. you. not.
I about fell off the chair and freaked everyone out when I told them I had named her Daisy on the drive over.




 Daisy normally weighed 8 to 9 pounds, but the day we found her she weighed 3 pounds.  With her current health condition, which turned out to be very dire,  and the impending hard freeze expected that night the vet and staff felt sure she would not have survived another day.  Daisy was an indoor cat who escaped through an open window one lovely early fall afternoon.  As the crow flies, she lives about a mile and a half from us.  That she survived even one day, much less three months is amazing considering the thick woods between our house and hers are filled with all sorts of wildlife, and she would have been easy prey.
We waited at the vet's to meet Daisy's family.  The dad and two little boys quietly walked into the room and they were in complete shock that they are looking at their Daisy.  Daisy's mom was at work when she got the call from her husband and broke down sobbing that Daisy had been found.  The mom and dad had been gently trying to explain to the two little boys that Daisy was not coming home, but the little boys were convinced that Daisy would come home again!  Ahhh, faith through the eyes of a child!
Daisy had to stay at the vet's for over a week to be force fed and monitored.  In the meantime Dan and I received texts, phone calls, a gift and cards from Daisy's family and Daisy's grandparents!!  Turns out Daisy was one loved and missed little cat!   Daisy arrived home right before Thanksgiving and received lots of love and attention and lots of licks on her face (per Daisy's mom) from her dog-brother!!

Daisy made weekly trips to the vet for weight checks and blood work which were all slowly improving!  Daisy and her mom even stopped by the house one day on the way to the vet.  It was so good to see her regaining her health, she was up over 7 pounds and her blood work was back to normal; she looked like a completely different cat than the one we found.

It had been several months and I had been thinking about Daisy a lot last week, for some reason, and kept meaning to check in to see how she was doing.  Then several days later I got a text from Daisy's mom saying that Daisy's health had declined.  She had developed diabetes and lost weight, back to almost 4 pounds.  No doubt due to her time in the wilderness and the toll it took on her little body.  Her family knew that their time with her was short, but they wanted me to know.




This morning I received this text...
Hi Joan, this is the final update... we will be putting Daisy to rest later this morning.  It's time.  xoxo

We were so sad to get this news, but yet so grateful that Daisy got to go home and live out the rest of her life with love and her family.

It was late this morning that I was standing at the kitchen sink, on the phone with Dan, when out from the woods in the back meadow, not far from where I first spotted Daisy, was what appeared to be a bobcat.  (We have not seen a bobcat/cat since that November day.)
 But was it??
I had thought Daisy was a bobcat the first time I laid eyes on her too.  It's raining  and cold today and the windows are closed, but as I spoke to tell Dan what I was seeing, the cat stopped... turned its head and looked directly at me.  I had chills.  I walked upstairs to get the binoculars and I reached the window just as the cat was disappearing into the woods.  I have not seen the cat since.

I think it was Daisy...  coming to say goodbye.

  We learned the day that we found Daisy that it is rare for people to microchip their indoor cats, thinking they don't need to because the cat live inside.  Shelly, the wonderful woman who manages the front desk at our vet said in her 11 years of working there this is the first time she has ever seen a microchipped cat returned to its owner.  She said on the rare occasion a cat is found with a microchip the information on the chip is outdated and the owner can not be found.

So... this is a pet-friendly reminder, for the love of Daisy,  to microchip your cats too and to all pet owners.... make sure your information is up to date!!

In honor of Daisy I have an "Adoptable Cat of the Week" from Lytle, Texas Animal Care and Control posted at the top of my sidebar.  Please share if you can.



Tomorrow I will find some daisies to take to her grieving family.

photo via Pinterest

xxojoan